I never used cast iron because I thought it was too heavy. But the more you use it, the more you realize how fabulous it is. I'm crazy for it now.

When Mom decided to move in with me five years ago, I was delighted that she brought along the treasured family heirlooms.

Gold? Silver? Crystal?

Cast iron.

The set of three skillets -- small, medium and large -- had already done several tours of duty in the O'Reilly family. On the outside, they were crusted black, the result of flames meeting an occasional spill. The insides were black, too, but smooth from caretaking.

I fell in love with them over a lifetime, and to have them move in with me, well, it was a gift from the culinary gods.

Last week, I interviewed cookbook author Carla Snyder of Hudson, who completely understood my crush on these antiques.

"They really are the original nonstick pans," she said. "You just have to make sure they're hot when you use them."

Snyder says she loves her cast iron more than her fancy All-Clad, but it took her time to get to that point.

"I never used cast iron because I thought it was too heavy. But the more you use it, the more you realize how fabulous it is. I'm crazy for it now. There's just something about the way it holds the heat without hot spots. And for those who have a flat-surface cooktop, the pans don't warp. They sit evenly.

"Mine is indestructible," she added. "It has no cleaning issues. Just a swish with a scrubby sponge, a rinse and a dry paper towel, and it's done.

"And it's inexpensive. How much is an All-Clad, $300? The cast iron is about $30. You can probably get one in a thrift shop for a couple of bucks. Mine is from Sidney, Ohio, back when Ohio was a hotbed of ironworks."

A single pan makes all the difference for Snyder in her new cookbook, "One Pan, Two Plates," (Chronicle Books, 208 pages, $24.95), a tribute to cooking for two by cutting down on utensils. Almost everything happens in one thick-bottomed, 12-inch skillet -- cast iron or otherwise.

The objective is to save time and cleanup, and produce something as bountiful as the colorful meals in her book.

A regular teacher at the Western Reserve School of Cooking near her home, Snyder ramps up the flavors and textures of most skillet cooking. It's her sixth cookbook, but her first one solo.

"The cooking-for-two market seemed underserved," she said by phone from home, with kids and dogs clamoring in the background. "And people keep telling me they make so much food using traditional recipes for four or six people, that they end up throwing food away. So I liked the idea of cooking for two with no leftovers."

"One Pan" is promoted as a source of quick weeknight meals, but I tried several recipes that would make guests happy, including a balsamic turkey with eggplant caponata and cheesy artichoke layer; a Spicy Orange Beef Stir-Fry; and an elegant Three-Cheese Mac with Crispy Prosciutto.

These dishes would certainly have blown Anna O'Reilly's mind after a lifetime of unadorned fried fish, pork chops and chicken -- all served with a side of potatoes. But my grandmother would have liked the economy of a meat and a side all from the same pan. Except for the occasional call for a mixing bowl, each of Snyder's six recipes I tried truly was a one-skillet deal.

And what a skillet it is.

Cast iron comes with the scary reputation of rusting, and in my early years of cooking, I spent plenty of time scrubbing one out. But moving to an equally sensitive metal wok taught me the value of curing, a way of sidestepping rust problems by keeping the patina, or "skin" of use, on the pan's interior. It's basically a cooked-in layer of grease that comes from pre-treating (oiling and heating) and light-duty maintenance.

Lodge, a leading cast-iron cookware manufacturer, now sells itsgoods pre-seasoned.

After that, you follow some rules: No soap. No dishwasher. Fill the pan with warm water and let it soak 5-10 minutes before a quick scrub with a rough sponge or brush. Stubborn burnt foods? Soak again and scrub a bit harder. The pan can take it.

Snyder likes a final wipe with a paper towel, but I set it back on the stove over a high flame to cook off the last layer of moisture. If I scrubbed too hard, and rust started appearing, I rubbed in a final light coat of oil and heated it again.

It's a tip I got from a wok store owner in San Francisco's Chinatown.

"The metal is like the skin on your face," the merchant said. "You can dry it with a towel but it's still damp."

My life has been rust-free since then.

Cast iron is well-known for dispatching breakfast items such as sausage and eggs. But two other dishes have become regulars in my house: Lee Brothers' crispy skillet corn breadthat pops out of the pan like a magic show every time, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts that get seared on the cooktop and finished in a hot oven. The chef technique seals in the juices and lets you season the meat at any stage.

There have been other skillet books, other cooking-for-two recipe collections, but Snyder's opens a lot of doors at once. It would make a great gift for newlyweds or for couples whose kids have grown and gone.

It's made me love those three little pans even more than I ever thought I could. My widowed grandmother, Anna O'Reilly, didn't have a lot of money and wrestled with alcoholism. She moved a lot, and lost many possessions to unpaid storage bills before she came to live with us.

The pans were the only "heirlooms" to reach my mom, the youngest of Anna's 10 children.

Now they live this vibrant new life with us. They help me cook with skill, and with heart and soul.